Tory MPs should understand that the only beneficiaries of internal party
bickering are sitting on the opposite side of the Commons chamber

It is nearly 60 years since this newspaper carried a leading article under the headline “Waiting for the smack of firm government”, in response to the perceived drift of Anthony Eden’s Conservative administration. It was Eden’s misfortune that in order to demonstrate his mastery of affairs he ordered the invasion of Egypt to defend the Suez Canal, thereby triggering one of the great foreign policy crises of the postwar period. We do not urge anything so drastic upon David Cameron, who is, in any case, not entirely the master of the Government that he leads. But he does need to address similar questions now being asked not by his political opponents, but by senior members of his own party.

In The Daily Telegraph on Monday, Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, suggested that the Tories need to “pass the Danny Boyle test”, by demonstrating that they understand how much the country has changed in the 20 years since they last won an election outright. Yesterday, again in these pages, Tim Yeo, a former Conservative minister, said Mr Cameron must find a “sense of mission” and asked whether he was “a man or a mouse”. While this was said in the context of the renewed debate over a third runway at Heathrow Airport, it had a wider resonance. But it was, none the less, somewhat unfair. Mr Cameron is in a coalition and has far less room for manoeuvre than his critics sometimes care to admit. Where Mr Yeo justifiably hit a nerve was with his suggestion that Mr Cameron might prove to be “another Harold Macmillan, presiding over a dignified slide towards insignificance”.

The Prime Minister is an admirer of Macmillan, who was the beneficiary of Eden’s fall in 1957, and especially of the “middle way” that he espoused. But Macmillan – like Tony Blair, another leader respected in Downing Street – was a prime minister blessed with a benign economy. We live in a very different environment today; and while most voters struggling in the recession may not be paying much attention to the late-summer pratings of politicians, they still want to know that the country is being clearly and ably led. By the same token, Tory MPs should understand that the only beneficiaries of internal party bickering are sitting on the opposite side of the Commons chamber.

Mr Cameron was elected Conservative leader before the crash of 2008, as a man for good times. But he has no choice other than to adapt to the changed circumstances. As he concludes his holiday in Cornwall, he should consider how, in the coming weeks and months, he can demonstrate to his own party and to the country at large that he has the “sense of mission” to get us through these hard times.